Adored Middleboro teacher to retire

Carlene Carrier's teaching experiences spanned continents and cultures, from parochial schools to middle schools, charter schools and even classrooms in the jungles of Africa.

Alice ElwellEnterprise Correspondent

MIDDLEBORO – Carlene Carrier’s teaching experiences spanned continents and cultures, from parochial schools to middle schools, charter schools and even classrooms in the jungles of Africa.

But the longtime teacher found her niche at the Henry B. Burkland Elementary School in Middleboro, where she closed her classroom for the last time recently, retiring after 28 years there.

“She’s just a great person,” said Burkland Principal Derek Thompson. “She enjoyed what she did. She did it for all the right reasons."

The school embraced Carrier from her first day when fellow teacher Carol Damon, now retired, reached out and offered to share her classroom because Carrier’s was one of several that were closed due to a mold problem.

“She jumped in with both feet and never looked back,” said Damon. “She’s what you call one of those ladies who have teaching in their blood. It was a calling,” Damon said.

The choices Carrier made reflect the lessons she’s learned. She choose not to put her own children in day care and put her career on hold to be a stay-at-home mother.

It was during that period of her life that Carrier and her family followed a film crew to Africa, India and China. The Carriers were part of a company that filmed “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”, which her son Corey starred in. Carrier lived with the the Maasai, an East African tribe taught their children in an open-air classrooms next to a river where hippopotamus wallowed.

Damon knew of Carrier’s brush with Hollywood but said, “She never bragged about it. She was humble, but don’t ever underestimate her quietness. She’d fight for students in need,” Damon said.

Carrier’s approach to teaching went beyond academics, she instilled life skills. She taught her students how to take a journey into a book, how to express themselves and be listened to. Carrier embraced the advent of technology and the instant answers that come from Google, but she never gave up her hard copies of encyclopedia and dictionaries. Instead they became part of her curriculum, and she taught children how to use the spine of a book to begin their search for information.

Longtime family friend Kevin F. Flaherty said Carrier’s journey’s around the world enabled her to bring back her experiences to her students.

“Carlene was actually there and can say what it’s like standing in front of a pyramid or riding a camel," he said.

But Flaherty said Carrier also taught her students about their own backyards when she’d take them on field trips into a swamp, armed with buckets, butterfly nets and spades.

Carrier, who is 4-feet-8, says if she could wave a magic wand and be granted one wish, “ I’d like to see more time for teachers to share literature.”

Even after learning to read on their own, children still love to have someone read to them. “Once they reach the age when they can read, not many are read to, and so many kids enjoy being read to. ” Carrier said.

Carrier started off every school year reading with a British accent from the Minpins, a book by Roald Dahl The story is about a boy who is forbidden to go into the woods near his home, but he goes in anyway and falls into a world of little people – Minpins, she said. As soon as Carrier called her class to gather for the Minpins, they’d run to their places, “They enjoyed the pleasure of being read to, they just didn’t want me to stop."

Carrier said it’s a different experience as a listener, “In today’s world, children need to learn to listen." She said listening is an art she instills on her students.

Maya Fontinah was one of her many students who helped Carrier clear out her classroom. The lanky fourth grader, 10, said Carrier made school fun, “She put on (children’s singer and comedian) Bill Harley the first day of school." Carrier also taught her class a trick to solve division, by asking, ‘Does MacDonald’s sell cheese burgers?’ The first letter in each word represents a step: divide, multiply, subtract, compare, bring down, Maya said.

The 60-year-old teacher considered each class a family, “I spent more time with some children than their parents,” explaining how busy work schedules cut into family time.

While many new teaching methods promote better education, Carrier said some key skills are falling to the wayside. She says people are giving up human interaction to communicate electronically, and muses how restaurants are full of people focused on their devices, rather than their dining companions.

She understands the no-touch rule that permeates today's relationships between teachers and students, but says, “I still hug them."

Now that she’s retired, Carrier plans on getting started with her latest endeavor, to write a children’s book, “It was inspired by the Burkland kids.” But she’s keeping mum on the plot, “I’m not saying.”

Carrier said she will keep her hand in education and continue to work with children, but her next goal is to adopt a new dog, because her 3-year-old granddaughter Jordyn has taken over her old dog.